Chain Reaction
by nine miles to go
Summary: Maybe Sacred Heart wasn't where the gang originally met. Maybe when they were younger...well, read! Some bigtime JDA in the updated chapters to come, so read.
1. Chain Reaction

Okay, this is some crackpot idea I had during my mid-September crisis. I'm so hard pressed for time now. Yikeseys. I'm totally in over my head, but blah, fanfiction is like cheap therapy, so it's worth it! TAKE THAT, PEOPLE IN AP PSYCH AT MY HIGH SCHOOL! Meh.

Disclaimer: (YAWNS) I don't own Scrubs. I want to SLLEEEEP.

READ THE FIC!

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Chain Reaction

"Quit being such a downer," I told my older brother. I swung my worn out backpack over my shoulder. I'd had it for years; I had the same notebook and pencils in it that I'd had at the past three schools we'd gone to. I thought it was ironic that our dad was a traveling office supplies salesman and we had absolute crap to take to school. When I told Dan, though, he told me to stop using words like "ironic" and called me a farthead.

Dan, who was thirteen and two years older than I was, rolled his eyes. "It's not like I'm going to know these people in two weeks," he pointed out bitterly.

I shrugged. I hated traveling with Dad all the time, too, but I learned to adjust a long time ago. It was harder for Dan. He could remember living with my mom in Los Angeles until he was six and how nice it was. I can't remember it at all.

He rubbed his eyes awake. "What freaking state are we in right now, anyway?"

We walked out of the apartment building and he groaned at the heat. "Right," he said. "Florida. Just peachy."

"We're right by the beach," I said optimistically.

"We're three miles from the beach. I'm not gonna walk with you."

I shrugged again. I'd get there by myself, asking for directions. After I did the homework for the new school. Dan was right; we'd probably only be here for two weeks or so. But it was rare that we were in a place long enough to attend school. Whenever we did, it was usually for my benefit—Dan hated it. But I loved every second of it. I had about twenty five different library passes from cities we'd stopped in, all for reading about math and science and all the subjects I knew I was missing from all the scattered schools.

"Nervous?" I asked.

Dan scoffed and walked faster, keeping at least a ten foot difference between us so no one would think we were related. I stuck my tongue out at him. I was nervous, even if he wasn't. I shook a bit at the sight of the enormous middle school, knowing I'd have to suck it up and go in. Maybe I'd make a friend.

"Look at the loser with the tongue!"

I looked up, my tongue practically lolling. I closed my mouth immediately, but not fast enough. A bus full of boys was driving out of the school and had spotted me. The kid who yelled had his head out of the window, pointing and laughing.

My cheeks burned. I looked down at my feet, trying to laugh it off. That was what I always did, anyway—laughed it off. There was nothing else I could do.

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I rolled my eyes. "C'mon, guys, be nice," I joked. "It's the nerds that will be your boss someday, after all." I didn't mention that I saw that on someone's t-shirt a couple of days before. Instead I grinned. We were, after all, going to state champs for junior basketball. It didn't get much better than that.

"Yeah, yeah, Chris," Carlos muttered. "Honest, though, he was _sticking out his tongue. _I bet you he's one of those aliens-are-real-they're-up-my-nose idiots."

I laughed. After all, Carlos was in eighth grade and I was in sixth. I was in no position to question him. "Yeah, I bet," I agreed. I couldn't help but wonder, though—who was that kid? I mean, the school was pretty big, but I was pretty sure I knew everyone. I was a sixth grade class officer. I saw a lot of faces.

"We're gonna kick some ass at champs!" Shane, another eighth grader, whooped.

"Watch the language," Coach warned, though we all had seen him say a lot worse when he was mad.

The rest of the team cheered and whistled in response. My grin widened. This was it. This was the big day we'd waited for all season, and after all the years of practicing in the backyard with my dad, it was finally going to happen.

"Okay, everyone, quiet down," Coach said over the hollering. "As promised, we're going to stop at Mickey D's for breakfast. I'm getting everyone pancakes. No special requests, okay?"

More cheering. My stomach grumbled. I hadn't had anything else to eat this morning because of the breakfast, and I was ready to wolf down some pancake.

"Turk, you mind going in with me to pick up the order?" Coach asked.

My ears perked up. "Huh?"

Coach's eyes got wide and mocking, repeating slowly, "Can…you…pick—"

"Oh, sure," I said, getting off of the bus with him. What had caught me off guard was that he'd called me by my last name. I wasn't even sure he knew I existed, let alone knew my last name. But that wasn't it. There was a ring to it. Turk. Turk the Basketball Player, Turk the Student Officer, Turk the Cool Kid. So much better than plain old Chris.

I helped Coach get the bags from the McDonald's employee. "Have a nice day," the guy, who looked like he was in his early twenties, said somewhat snidely. I did a double-take, but let it go. I was too excited to let someone get me down.

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For a second I thought the kid caught my smirk, but I hid it pretty fast. Okay, yes, being cocky and annoying on the job wasn't so smart when God only knew if my sad excuse for a manager could be flipping burgers behind me. I snorted. Not like he ever left the Batcave that was his office.

He left like all the others, practically giddy with excitement. _Heart disease! _I wanted to scream. Not that I was exactly nutritionally conscious—I helped myself to whatever I wanted to when I wasn't working the register—but I thought it was fun to watch the small children, the Future of America, be tainted by the fast food chains. I found it hilarious that I was working in a McDonald's to get through med school. Half the stuff we learned were about things that McDonald's caused! Ha!

"Hello, ma'am, may I take your order?" I said mechanically.

"Two extra large sodas, a large fry, a chicken nugget happy meal and two number threes."

"What drink with the happy meal?"

"Oh. Sprite."

It annoyed me how people said "large fry" instead of "a large order of fries." One of these days I was just going to hand someone an extra long, thick looking fry and say, "Here you are, bonehead."

"Next."

"Oh, um, I'd like a water and…a large fry?"

Another pet peeve. When people ask questions that aren't questions. I sized the girl up. She looked young and lanky, maybe starting high school. Tall, skinny, and blonde, like a Barbie doll. There was a group of girls behind her that looked near eleven or twelve. I tried not to snort again. These kids—tourists, probably—thought that they were all that. They thought they were so cool for vacationing in Florida. Well, they weren't stuck here with a minimum wage job through all the heat, now, were they?

She paid me in quarters (typical, when I'm on the verge of killing someone out of sheer annoyance). She left and immediately tripped on the absurdly high heels she obviously didn't know how to walk in, sending the fries flying. To my amusement, the only one left in the box was a single, large fry.

Sometimes I loved this job.

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I could feel my cheeks growing hot as I lifted myself up off the ground.

"Oh my God, Elle, are you okay?" Ashley squeaked, getting up from her chair to help me. Ashley was vacationing in Florida with us because her parents were going to Spain, and she'd already been there a couple of times. She was actually pretty rich—you could tell from all of her designer clothes, and the ones she let me have when she was finished with them.

"Yeah," I muttered, trying to wave it off. My knee stung a bit. My fries were all over the floor and my water bottle was clear at the other end of the restaurant. "Typical."

Courtney, a girl we'd met at the beach yesterday, snorted. "Nice," she said sarcastically.

Ashley frowned. "C'mon, Elle," she said, helping me up. "Let's head back to the hotel. I'm not really hungry anyway."

I smiled at her gratefully. Courtney and her band of friends weren't exactly the kindest type. Well, Ashley could deal with them—she was so outgoing and bubbly that she could deal with anyone—but she knew I didn't particularly mesh with certain people. Sometimes it felt like I didn't really mesh with anyone, actually.

"Bye, klutz-iot," one of Courtney's friends, Sam, yelled after me. I blushed worse than before and slouched a bit—I hated being tall. Absolutely hated it. But Ashley just kept on walking, ignoring them completely.

"Wanna walk on the beach?" she asked me once we were out of McDonald's. God, was it hot. I was suddenly glad that my mom made me wear the tank top instead of the baggy t-shirt I wanted to put on, even if it made me fully aware of how flat-chested I was. Oh, well. I was only twelve. There was time, right?

"Sure," I said. "Hey, thanks for…back there."

She laughed. "Thanks for what? They were jerks. We'll have more fun without them—plus, we'll never see them again."

"I hope," I added. "You want ice cream? I actually am hungry."

"Me too," she giggled, "but better not to let them know! Hey, let's go to that ice cream place on the corner. I love their cookie dough."

We started to walk off the beach when an inflated ball hit me in the head. For a split second I thought it was Courtney again, but I blew that idea off when I realized the absurdity of it. I picked the ball up off the ground and threw it at a Hispanic looking boy of about five.

"Thanks, lady!" he called, grinning broadly.

Did he just call me lady?

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"Anthony, get over here!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. He jumped. I smirked. My little cousins had forgotten in the past year I hadn't seen them that I had the sound range of an ambulance siren.

Anthony ran over. "Sorry, Carla," he said pitifully, holding the ball in his hands.

I knew it was fake sorrow. I could see right through it, thanks to my little brother Marco. "Aw, don't go apologizing to me. Apologize to that blonde chica you just smashed in."

"It's an inflatable ball," Marco drawled. "Full of _air_."

"Like your _head_," I shot back. I turned back to Anthony. "If you're going to get to play with everyone, Anthony, you have to stop throwing the ball at people."

"Okay," he said, immediately shaking off the piteous attitude and grinning menacingly again. "Hey, Olive-head," he taunted his younger sister. "I'd watch out if I were you."

I sent him a warning glance. Olivia, who was four, clambered up next to me and grabbed my leg, sticking her tongue out at Anthony. "In your face," she taunted in a baby voice, a line she doubtlessly heard on television.

I snorted. So did Marco. Then we immediately stopped, looking down in at the beach in slight disgust for having an almost sentimental agreement on something. He was fifteen and I was seventeen; all he wanted to do was assert his manliness and separation from the family, whereas I just clung closer to my parents. It was evident I wasn't going to college. Once we got back to California from visiting the tots, I was fairly certain I'd become either a librarian or a nurse. Whichever worked out.

The ball plonked me in the head. "Hey!"

"You said not to throw it at _people_," Marco shrugged. "I didn't think you qualified."

Anthony bounced around excitedly, trying to grab the ball from my hands. "Carla's not a person! Carla's not a person!" he chanted, jumping up and down with his arms outstretched.

"Kids! We're heading back to the house!" my mother yelled. We loaded up into the car. The fight, of course, began instantaneously.

"Anthony! I want the ball!" Olivia screeched.

"Then grab it from me," he taunted, holding it away from her.

"MOM!" Olivia wailed in Spanish. "IT'S MY BALL!"

I leaned over to try and calm her, but it was too late. My Aunt Jane (it was short for something, I wasn't sure what), who was driving, had turned herself around to yell at the pair of them. "If I hear one more word—"

"JANE!" my mother screamed. The car skidded. I heard Marco scream and Olivia start to wail.

Then, as soon as it was started, it was over. I took a deep breath. We were off of the road now, on a part of residential streets where cars park. My aunt turned off the car and ran out.

"Is everyone okay?" I asked. I scanned the car and everyone seemed fine.

"Holy…" my mother gasped. "Thank God."

"What?"

"We didn't hit him."

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I wished they had just driven away instead of stopping. All I did was scrape my arm—well, okay, it was bleeding kind of badly, but nothing that I couldn't fix myself. They didn't hit me. Yes, it was a little scary, having a speeding car come out at you like that one did, but I had jumped out of the way in time and it wasn't an issue.

But no. They had stopped, and now a squat-looking Hispanic woman in her late forties was rushing out of the car.

"Are you alright?" she asked, her eyes wide with fear.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I assured her, a little more breathlessly than I meant to. I gave her a shaky smile that I couldn't quite plaster onto my face like I usually could. I guess it was still a little frightening.

"Oh, you poor baby," she said, starting to mutter anxiously in Spanish. She grabbed my bleeding arm. "Where's your mother? I am so sorry, I had no idea that…thank God that I didn't hit you, or…I can't even…"

"I'm fine, thank you," I said politely, starting to feel a bit nervous.

"Where are your parents?" she repeated.

I shrugged. I really didn't know. My dad could be all the way down to southern Florida by now; he frequently took road trips and based us someplace on our own. My mom was still somewhere in California. "I don't know."

"How do you not know?" she asked incredulously, still fretting over the bleeding arm. It was getting pretty gross, actually. I was going to be wearing long sleeved shirts for a while.

I shrugged again. To my shock, my eyes were actually starting to get a bit teary. It was just hitting me for the first time in a couple of months that there was no one to run to if I got hurt. I couldn't call anyone. I didn't know anyone.

For the first time, I felt piteously alone.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"John," I answered in a low voice, trying to keep my tone even despite the tightness in my throat and the overwhelming heaviness that had settled in my chest.

"Can we drive you home?" she nearly begged. "Please let us drive you home, I want to know that someone can take care of you. I can't believe my stupidity. I'm so sorry…"

"No, no, it's fine," I said, pulling away. I didn't want their pity. I didn't want anyone's pity. "Thank you, though."

"Thank you?" she repeated bitterly. "I just near hit you, kid…"

I forced a laugh. This was what I got for trying to go to the beach for an hour. Dan would be sorry that he missed out on me suffering. As if to emphasize this, my arm started stinging with a searing sort of pain. I looked at it again. A lot of the skin was rubbed off in the fall.

"I live right over there, anyway," I said, pointing in same vague direction.

She was too worried to see past the lie. "Are you sure you'll be alright?" she said anxiously.

I nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine," I repeated for the umpteenth time. In truth, I just wanted her to leave before I started to cry.

She ruffled a hand through my hair. For a moment I wanted to close my eyes, imagine that she was someone who cared. But I knew that she was only worried because of her conscience. I'd be forgotten within a day. She wouldn't be able to place my face, but only the thought of hitting someone and living with it.

I sighed as she left. There were kids in the car, being comforted by another woman. As they drove away, a teenage girl stuck her hand to the window, as if she was waving good-bye.

"Good-bye," I whispered, holding up a palm in reply. A tear fell into my opened mouth. I touched my face and felt streams of them. I stood there for a while, then felt the rain starting to come down. I figured it was time to walk home.

Instead, though, I walked and sat underneath the old boardwalk. There was no one there. I was, at last, alone to cry.

But wasn't I already alone?

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I don't think there's any way to continue this, so unless someone has an idea, I guess it's a one-shot. So...REVIEW.


	2. Perry and the Kid

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story.

Alright, everyone, I wasn't going to continue this, but I had a lot of requests from reviewers, so I decided it would be best. Everyone thank **smilebackwards **for this update, cuz I totally used her...or his...ITS...lol it was an anonymous review...idea for the continuation of this plot. That's right--**smilebackwards **had the idea to have Dr. Cox find JD in this chappie, NOT ME. I just wrote it up. So thank him/her/it. Lol. Fanfic is so impersonal.

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I was two seconds away from beating my head against the register. It was seven thirty, past the dinner rush, and nobody was in the freaking McDonald's anymore. I wondered vaguely if it were possible for the smell of greasy, manufactured burger to embed itself in the hairs of my nostrils so as to torture me for the rest of my god forsaken life, but I was interrupted by my manager.

"Perry, if you're not going to do anything productive, start mopping the floor," the pinhead ordered.

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, sir," I said sarcastically. I knew he wouldn't fire me. This dump was desperate for employees during tourist season; it took any idiot to realize that. Besides, the manager was—what, three years older than I was? Four at the most.

Nonetheless, the mopping began. I yawned. I didn't give a crap about anything this far into a shift. Okay, it was only ten hours, admittedly. How was I going to make it through my internship if I couldn't handle ten hours in the fast food business without falling asleep? I hoped that maybe medicine would be a bit more interesting than the crap I dealt with here. Otherwise two hundred thousand dollars worth of education had just gone down the one of the toilets I kept "forgetting" to clean.

Thunder clapped outside, and I groaned inwardly. My car recently began leaking (I have a theory that God hates me, but unfortunately there's no way to prove that until I get to meet the Big Guy myself…which is, at this rate, unlikely, seeing as Satan's already claimed me for his own), and now the seats were going to be all wet.

I checked the clock. Thirty minutes left and I was off, letting the night-shift suckers start.

The door jingled open. I didn't look up until I heard a yelp and saw a kid sliding towards me on the wet tile.

I sighed, sticking the mop in the bin of murky water. "Look at the sign, kid," I said in a monotone.

"S-sorry," the kid said shakily, rising to his feet. His arm was tucked awkwardly to his side and he was completely drenched from head to toe. He looked around ten or eleven, a skinny shrimp. I felt a little bad for him, mostly because I knew there hadn't _been _a sign for him to watch out for, but other than that I didn't give a crap.

He took a seat at a booth in the corner, his feet dangling, not even tall enough to touch the ground. I turned my attention back to the floor and saw a watery red stain—funny, that hadn't been there a second ago. I mopped it up, though, not really thinking about it.

A couple of minutes later the kid started to cough. I glared over in his direction. He was interrupting my need for complete and absolute silence and I was about ready to kill him. "Hey, kid, you can't just sit there and get the tables all wet unless you're planning to actually _buy_ something," I told him in irritation.

He looked up at me in slight alarm, wondering for a moment if I had been talking to him. I got that a lot. Customers were appalled at my attitude sometimes, but what the hell did I care? So they decided they wouldn't come back to this McDonald's. What did it matter? They were on vacation; they'd leave in two days for their houses in Connecticut or Oklahoma or something and never think about it again.

"That's right, buddy. No loitering allowed."

He bit his lip. I noticed the kid was shaking slightly, still wet, his face pale. I sighed. Did this mean I was supposed to care? I wasn't even a doctor yet.

He took two quarters out of his fist. "I'll have fries." One of his arms was still tucked oddly into his side, shielded from view, but I figured it would be rude to ask if it ended up being some deformity. Believe me, I'd learned that the hard way more than once.

I took the quarters from him and grabbed fries, sticking them on his table. He looked at them but didn't touch them.

"You gonna eat those?" I asked once I had finished my mopping.

"You can have them," he offered.

I shrugged. Free food was great, but eating someone else's food was even better. I looked around and made sure the coast was clear, then sat down across from the kid and started eating the fries.

"It's late," I mentioned.

The kid nodded at me.

Some people just can't take a hint. "So where are your parents?" I asked, practically spelling it out for him.

He shrugged. "Dunno."

"Alrighty," I said, "what are you doing here, then?"

He shrugged again, staring at the tabletop. Did he realize how rare it was for me to talk to anyone? I was practically gracing this kid with the mere act of my speaking to him, and he was blowing me off. Believe me, any twenty-four-year-old who gets blown off by a preteen considers it a blow to their ego.

"Are you on vacation here?" I asked impatiently.

He shook his head. "No, I…long story," he said, shrugging again.

"You know, if you keep shrugging like that, people will think you're a buffoon who doesn't speak any English beyond one word answers and extremely vague, nonsensical statements instead of the gangly ten-year-old nuisance you most likely are," I badgered him, wondering if he understood a word I was saying. He didn't react, just kept staring.

"What the hell's your problem?" I finally just flat out asked.

He shrugged for the billionth time, then grinned at me. His eyes were big and sad, though. I never really knew the meaning of "puppy dog eyes" until I was looking at this kid. A mop of wet brown hair was sticking to his forehead and his eyes were wide and almost frightened-looking, but he went right on grinning.

I scoffed. "Use your words, pipsqueak." The look was _not_ going to work on me.

"What the heck is _your_ problem?" he countered a bit hesitantly.

"Nice," I said sarcastically. "Real nice. We've got ourselves a smarty pants here." I looked at the clock. My shift was over in five minutes. "Why don't you just go home?"

His face really was as white as a sheet, and he was still shivering. It wasn't even cold outside. Yeah, it was raining, but this was Florida in the summertime. It never got cold.

"I will," he said, still sitting there.

"Well?"

"In a minute."

I looked over at his awkwardly hung arm for a second. What was he trying to hide? Did he steal a piece of gum from the mini mart across the street or something?

And then I saw it. His dark blue shirt was wet, so it wasn't easy to see, but there was a darker rouge color forming around the spot where his arm was pressed to his shirt. I thought back to the red on the floor and realized it must have been his blood. No wonder the kid was shaken up.

I grabbed his arm. He yelped at first, obviously reluctant to be discovered, and tried to pull away. Unfortunately for him, having not yet reached a hundred pounds, I easily won the three millisecond battle.

"Yikes," I muttered. Most of the skin from his forearm to his shoulder was raw and bloody, looking completely disgusting. I cringed and looked up at his face. He was certainly looking a little more freaked out now that he was staring at it.

"Leave me alone," he muttered, wrenching his arm back when I loosened my grip.

"You can't go out like that," I protested. "Use your head, brainiac. How the hell did that happen? Did you get jumped by a Disney character gang or something?"

His cheeks turned an indignant color red. "I almost got hit by a car," he said through grit teeth, "but I jumped out of the way before it hit me." His eyes were starting to water. Damn it. I hadn't meant to make the kid cry.

"Look," I said, sighing. I hated being charitable. "Why don't I drive you home? Your mom or dad can check it out."

"You can't!"

"I can't what?"

"Drive me home," he said hurriedly. "I'm not allowed…to talk to strangers," the kid said, clearly lying.

"Right. Because I'm an extremely dangerous man who possibly has twelve guns in his car labeled 'to kill ten-year-olds.'"

"I'm eleven."

"Whoop-dee-doo. I'm driving you home. Believe me, your parents aren't going to be mad."

"My parents aren't there."

"Well, where are they?"

"I don't know..." he trailed off, staring at his shoes. He was dripping blood onto the floor by now, and his face was sickly tinged. He looked a bit shaky on his feet. I knew what I had to do—I just wish that I didn't have to be the one to do it.

I checked the clock. My shift was over.

"C'mon, we're going to the emergency room," I said, grabbing him by the good arm.

"No!" he yelled. "I can't. I'll get in trouble. My brother…"

"Will live." I dragged him out the door, asking myself and Satan in hell one more time why these sorts of things always seemed to happen to me.

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YEAH JDA! Lol. Again, thank **smilebackwards **for the beautiful idea here. If ya didn't get that blatantly obvious memo planted right above the beginning of this chapter, then...scroll back up and read it again. Lolzers. REVIEW.


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